"If you looked through a telescope and saw a lion running toward you down the road, what would you do?"

"Climb a tree." Spence had become absorbed in Adjani's argument.

"Of course. You might do any number of things, but you would not say to yourself: 'the focal point does not exist, therefore the lion does not exist."' "Only a fool would react that way."

"Oh? Well, it might surprise you to know that is exactly how you've been reacting toward God."

"I don't see it that way."

"Explain it to me then, if you can." The remark drew no response from Spence. He glared ahead stubbornly. "Shall I explain it to you?"

"Go ahead-it's your nickel. You seem to have all the answers. "

Adjani ignored the jab and went on as if he had not heard it. How clear does it have to be for you? God is meeting you at every turn, Spence. Think about it. Back there in the camp you prayed for a little boy who died and he lived again. On Mars you Yourself should have died and yet you survived-against all odds You survived. And what is more, a creature from an alien civilization awoke from a sleep of five thousand years to tell you himself about God. And you insist you cannot see it?" Adjani threw back his head and gave a little laugh. "What must he do to get through to you? What will it take before you believe? Must these stones rise up and shout?" He waved a hand over the rough rocky path before them.

Although he posed as the antagonist in these discussions with Adjani, he actually agreed more than he admitted. Spence had reached the same conclusions the night the boy had been revived. It had affected him more deeply than he could express to another person. He had thought about very little else since that moment. He relived it constantly, still savoring the strangeness, the awful vividness of it.

Here was a reality that surpassed all previously known realities he had ever experienced. It was as if the source of all life had passed through him for one blinding instant. And in that moment he had seen himself and the world as he had never seen it before. The memory of it left him weak.

Perhaps that was why he was fighting so hard not to believe. Adjani was right-if he believed, it would change him. He was merely clinging to the last shreds of his tattered naturalistic world view. Giving it up was not easy, and not a thing done capriciously. Much of who he was, the person he knew himself to be, was wrapped up in that cold, concise, computer-generated view of the universe.

Adjani's question still rang in his ears. He turned to answer, not knowing what he would say, but feeling it in his heart. He opened his mouth to speak.

Suddenly, like a blast of hot wind which shrivels the tender leaves of grass, a wilting sensation passed through Spence. He tottered a few steps, threw down his bundle, and clutched his head. He turned and looked at Adjani, eyes wide and staring.

"Ari… Ari!" he cried and dropped unconscious to the ground.

14

… WHEN SPENCE CAME To, Gita was holding his head between his pudgy hands, leaning over him. Adjani held a tin filled with water up to his mouth. "Here, drink this. Slowly. That's right."

Spence moved to sit up. His head throbbed wildly, but other than that he felt all right. "How long was I out?" He rubbed his head and rolled it around on his shoulders as if to see if it was still in good working order.

"Not long. A couple of minutes maybe."

"It is too hot to be traveling on foot in the daytime," said Gita. He had been saying that ever since they struck out on the road without stopping that morning. "I think we should rest."

"No, we go on," replied Spence firmly. "Maybe we'll find some transportation -Gaur is just ahead, didn't you say?"

"Sunstroke is nothing to sneer at, Spencer Reston." Gita's dark complexion had taken on a distinct ruddy tint. The exertion of their trip was telling on him.

"We should rest a while anyway. Gita is right. It is getting too hot to be tramping around in the middle of the day. We can move on at dusk."

Spence squinted up his eyes and gazed skyward. The white -hot ball of the sun seemed to strike down at them with a fury -perhaps it had been a touch of sunstroke which had felled him.

Perhaps. But there was something else, too. He remembered calling out for Ari when it had struck, and he still vaguely felt that she-or someone else-was trying to get in touch with him in some way.

He lowered his gaze to regard Gita and Adjani. Black spots swam before his eyes and he reeled unsteadily.

"Sunstroke," repeated Gita. "It is not good."

"We'd better rest, Spence. For a couple of hours at least."

Spence nodded and they moved up the road a few meters to a huge spreading banyan tree, there to recline in the shade among the snaking branches and hanging trunks.

He sipped some more water and sat for a while with his head in his hands. The landscape far to the north wavered like a projection on a fluttering screen as waves of heat rose up from the land. He had not noticed the heat before, but was acutely aware of it now.

Gita's bulbous blue – turbanned head found a rock to prop itself on and soon his snores filled the air with a sleepy sound. Flies buzzing among the interwoven limbs of the tree droned on, and Spence felt the strain and tension melt away.

He lay back against the cool bark of one of the tree's innumerable trunks and stretched his legs out before him. At once he felt more relaxed. He sat for a time listening to the snores and the flies and the occasional bird call and let sleep steal over him. …

THE SUN WAS ORANGE and already reaching toward the horizon when Spence woke up again. Gita still snored, and he could hear the slow regular rhythm of Adjani's breath rising and falling in the shade nearby. The flies still buzzed around their heads, and the birds still chattered in the upper boughs of the tree.

But there was something else, too. And that something else, whatever it was, had brought him out of his nap.

He listened, straining into the silence of the forest around them, not moving a muscle. It came again almost in answer to his search-a muffled snort and a low rustling sound as if something big was moving through the underbrush. The sound trailed off as he listened and it sounded further off than he remembered, though he could not be sure-he had first heard it in his sleep.

Spence got to his feet and stepped back out onto the road. He paused to listen again and then began walking along the roadside in the direction they had been traveling. His senses were pricked sharp and he had an unaccountable feeling of being directed to seek out the source of the sound which he could not explain. He glanced back toward the tree where Adjani and Gita still slept and then hurried away on his chase.

The road dipped just ahead into a narrow valley. As Spence reached the crown of the hill and started down into the valley he thought he saw something dart away into the brush at the side of the road. There was just a blur of movement as he swung his eyes to the spot and then the quiver of roadside branches where the thing had entered.

Although he did not know what it was that he followed, he strongly suspected that it was not human. He had ceased to think about the possibility of encountering another band of goondas, although the likelihood of meeting them on the road was just as great as before.

Closer, Spence slowed and crouched, moving with as much stealth as he could manage. The inner voice which had roused him said, "Go on! Quietly!" He obeyed.

He slid to the side of the road where the bushes grew thick and nearly impenetrable. He could hear the sound of leaves rustling and branches snapping. A hollow snuffling, like the wheeze of an expiring engine, came filtering through the brush, and then the noise stopped.